Connor is often overlooked among the various Green Arrow legacy characters, despite the fact that he's the only one to ever actually take over the mantle. It might actually be because he was created for the role when there were so many characters that had been around longer, most notably Ollie's actual longtime sidekick, Roy Harper. While Connor was a Kelley Puckett creation, the same writer that created Cassandra Cain, he quickly became a very traditional Chuck Dixon character, loaded with martial arts intrigue. ​

​It's actually outsider status that made Connor such an unique choice to become Green Arrow. Ollie, for all his good qualities, was a terrible mentor. It's the one quality that seems to stand out in his relationship with every character he's taken under his wing: when he was really needed, he wasn't there. Roy obviously bore the brunt of it, forced to handle his own addiction and self-destructive tendencies on his own. In the end, Roy can only succeed when he forges his own path. Connor suffered because of Ollie's abandonment as much as anyone, but he managed to do it and come out the other end better for it. He grew up away from his father, learning skills that make him one of the best martial artists on the planet. This means that taking over the mantle of Green (or Red) Arrow is a step backward for Roy, but for Connor it's a way of embracing his legacy while still making it something new.

Green Arrow's Comic History

Lots of classic characters 'died' or otherwise passed on their legacies in the mid 90's, but the death of Oliver Queen wasn't what you'd call one of the good ones. He was in a plane that blew up. That was it. The arrival of Connor Hawke felt like it was just one more in a wave of new, young heroes, all in an attempt to make comics feel younger and fresher.

Conner was Ollie's long lost son, who just happened to have been raised in a tibetan monastery. It was a drastic simplification of the concept, but there was clearly some fertile ground to build a character on, because he WORKED. His solo adventures were compelling, and he even served briefly on the popular Grant Morrison-driven Justice League.

Eventually, of course, Ollie came back (In a story written by Kevin Smith, as it happens.) Connor was still around, but he never really rose to prominence again.

Our Green Arrow Story

The decision to permanently retire Oliver Queen as Green Arrow and have Connor serve as he replacement was actually an easier one than you'd think. Oliver is a great CHARACTER, but he's kind of a lousy SUPERHERO. He's loaded with personal flaws that have made his stories compelling forever, but he's always been more about his personality than his contributions to the heroic community. If we're going to take some of those passing-of-the-torch moments from the 90's and make them permanent, this is absolutely one of the very first ones that popped up.

​Connor is an incredibly competent hero. He has a pragmatism and eficiency in his concept that would be a real breath of fresh air to the world of Green Arrow. While the overall legacy of the Arrow family is full of people with demons, people overcoming personal adversity and shortcomings and finding it in them to be heroes ANYWAY, the idea of a single figure rising from that group with a clarity of purpose that would allow him to really achieve a greatness that Ollie never could on his own is immediately compelling.

We've made the transition fairly recently in our timeline. There really have been only a few major Connor story arcs so far; one is his decision to take on Mia as his sidekick. This serves the concept of Green Arrow greatly, because while Ollie was willing to take on proteges he was really terrible at taking care of them. Connor, of course, will be an excellent mentor, and seeing the difference really makes him stand apart from his father. Second is his inclusion on the new Hall of Justice League, where Black Canary, the team leader, would immediately invite Connor, knowing what a huge asset he will be to this new League.

Diversity in Green Arrow

The idea that Ollie's son was biracial was a pretty cool one; his mother was half black and half Korean. It doesn't read in the same broad-stroke way comics usually try to deliberately make their stories more diverse; it fueled who he was and how he interacted with the world in subtle ways. This was an idea that really could have used a lot more development, but unfortunately he was often drawn simply as a blonde dude. Even when effort was made to emphasize his features, the blonde hair sort of delineated it all, and you were left with a guy who just looked white.

Obviously the way his story is told is way more important than the way he looks, but it's a visual medium, and representation really is an important thing. It would just be way cooler if we looked at this character and saw someone that was multi-ethnic, rather than hinting at it. That would mean that instead of being a blonde guy with slightly darker skin, what we should see is a half black, half Korean man with slightly lighter skin. This seems like a weird thing to bring up, but Connor has some real potential to fill a much-needed roll in the larger world of representation in comics, and if that means making his ethnic diversity more evident than maybe comics will be a better place for it.

Green Arrow's Costume

Connor only held the mantle of Green Arrow for a relatively short time in the comics, and while he's appeared in other eras in variant costumes he's really only ever depicted in the costume he first appeared in; a variant of the classic Green Lantern costume with heavy brown accents and a hood. This was clearly meant to be a simplification of his concept; Connor wasn't a gadget-based hero, he didn't even use a compound bow. He was a Tibetan monk using his advanced martial arts skills as a superhero. His mastery of the bow was only one part of his larger skillset. You get the sense that if he had been given more time, his costume would have evolved further into something more deliberately his.

There have been quite a few simplifications and redesigns of Green Arrow's look over the last few years thanks the the character's successful tv series and his multiple new looks in the comics. Generally these looks are all designed for Ollie, and as such there's a sleekness and perhaps a bit of overdesign to them. Connor might eventually implement some of Ollie's more advanced technology into his superheroics, but at his core he's a very simplified version of the character. Still, it's pretty easy to imagine some of the cleaner, more modernized looks developed for modern takes on Ollie and apply them instead as a costume Connor could wear.

Green Arrow's Future

The absolute best thing about Connor taking over the legacy of Green Arrow is that he's a completely new character with a completely new set of strengths and weaknesses. While Roy might have picked up a healthy dose of the same arrogant irresponsibility of his mentor, Connor has a bottomless wellspring of discipline and focus to draw from. He's trustworthy. He's focused. His new approach to being Green Arrow is going to drive the character into a new era of prominence as he joins the new Justice League as one of it's main members. ​He is the person that decides to allow Mia to become Speedy, making her his sidekick and his alone. He's deliberately taking ownership of the Green Arrow name, and that's a really cool thing.

In the meantime, he's very much an outsider. He Isn't super-equipped to understand the subtle nuances of modern relationships. The fact that we get to watch him discover his own capacity for friendships and love and slowly discover that these can be strengths rather than weaknesses is a wonderful way to watch a character grow. His sexuality was up in the air during his series, but it's pretty clear that he's not straight, and if we were able to watch him discover his own sexuality that would make for a wonderful story. We're just at the beginning of Connor's career, and he has a huge capacity to grow. As one of the greatest martial artists in DC's pantheons and the heir to one of their greatest legacies with the ability to carry it better than the original ever did, Connor is a character that deserves to be at the head of everything to come.